Jujuy Lunfardo Dictionary

The sunshine is finally here for the first time since we arrived. It was so nice — 73°F!!! We started the day with the normal farm tasks — feeding the animals, letting the horses run free, scooping the cow poop, laying the hay…its just awesome.

For lunch, Barb’s aunt Marinela made Risotto and fried eggplant and we all ate together outside on the porch. Barb brought out a lot of maps and tourist booklets and she pointed out a few cool places to go in Varese and surrounding areas for our next days off on Monday and Tuesday. Amber and I are already getting used to hearing Italian and we are understanding quite a lot. So we sat there for a good 2 hours listening and chatting with the family, getting to know them more. We also gave them some good ol’ western NY maple syrup as a thank you for inviting us into their home and Barb was so excited. So tomorrow we will make some food to accompany the syrup.

We had the whole afternoon off so we sat on the porch and chilled with our computers and then Amber went into the sunshine and did some sewing/repairing of her pants and my only sweatshirt.

At around 7pm we started to help Barb in the kitchen, preparing for the 2 dinner parties that were coming into the restaurant that night. This was my first time serving to anyone so I was a bit nervous, especially since they spoke Italian — not English! I also looked like a doofus wearing black capri pants with white socks showing from my black shoes (and to add even more humor to the ensemble, my white socks had Italian flags on them!). The first dinner party was a couple. They were so cute and in love and very nice so it was easy. They also spoke English so that was good. I wasn’t very perceptive and I kept forgetting to grab certain things off the table when they were finished or leaving forks or checking the water. But it is a learning process.

The second party was a group of 6 people in their late 20’s early 30’s. They were really loud and asked a lot of questions. It was very nerving because I had to reach over people and carry lots of plates and get more water and wine and bread and blah blah blah. And the worst part about them is they kept ordering and ordering and they wouldn’t leave! It was 11:30 by the time they left and I was just exhausted waiting for them. But I had a really great time in the kitchen with Barbara and the family, trying all of the foods they sent out and just joking about everything. I’m really learning a lot from them and having such a wonderful time.